InCNTRE co-hosts first international PlugFest

It was a series of late nights for the crew at InCNTRE as they co-hosted the fifth interoperability PlugFest from May 12 to 16. The Beijing Internet Institute (BII) joined InCNTRE as the first lab outside the US to co-host one of the biannual gatherings.

"This was the first time OpenFlow devices were tested with devices halfway around the world," said Director Ron Milford. "Testing was a great success; we look forward to hosting future global PlugFests."

Held every six months, PlugFests are an important step in the development of a robust conformance and interoperability test program. They help ensure confidence in OpenFlow, and give test labs and tool developers early exposure to a wide range of vendor products.

As home to the first ONF-certified lab, InCNTRE remains the leading facility for third party interoperability testing and training to advance development and commercial adoption of Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies.

"InCNTRE is changing the face of networking around the world," said Rick Bauer, technical program manager for Open Networking Foundation. "Companies from all over the world are working together under protection of non-disclosure agreements, in a neutral environment where they can collaborate with great resources, tremendous infrastructure, and literally do SDN networking around the world -- there's no place like InCNTRE."

This was InCNTRE's third time hosting a PlugFest, and they worked long hours to enable real-time cooperative testing with the BII lab in China. With 14 companies on hand in Indianapolis and nine more halfway around the world in Beijing, PlugFest proved yet again to be a fertile ground for flourishing partnerships between business and higher education.